Hitler's Cosmopolitan Bastard

Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and His Vision of Europe

By: Martyn Bond

Narrated by: Christopher Kent

In his critically acclaimed account of one of Europe’s most important but often forgotten figures, former BBC foreign correspondent and EU insider Martyn Bond tells the extraordinary story of Richard Count Coudenhove-Kalergi. Known as “The Grandfather of Europe”, he was a personal friend of Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer and also served as the model for the fictional resistance hero Victor Laszlo in the film Casablanca. Actor Christopher Kent narrates this compelling new audiobook version of Martyn Bond’s original biography. Following the devastation of the First World War the glamorous young Count, son of an Austro-Hungarian diplomat father and Japanese mother, came to view the states of Europe as caught between the Soviet Union and the USA.

To hold the balance, Europe, he wrote, “must unite or die”. He therefore set out on a political mission to create a United States of Europe with no internal borders, a common currency and a single passport. Thousands flocked to support his ideas, including leading European statesmen and members of the intelligentsia, among them Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein. The Count's message infuriated Adolf Hitler, who described him in Mein Kampf as a "cosmopolitan bastard", and he narrowly escaped capture and assassination by the Gestapo.

An inspirational figure and brilliant networker, the Count described himself as a “European patriot” who saw international relations in terms of continents, not countries. His vision has never seemed more relevant.

©2021 Martyn Bond (P)2025 Claudia Hamill

Critic reviews

"An evocative portrait of an underappreciated statesman, someone who embraced the ideal of a united Europe long before others." John Kampfner, author of Why the Germans Do It Better: Notes from a Grown-Up Country.

"At last, the story of Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi can be widely shared. This is an enthralling tale... a stunning achievement." Anne Sebba, author of Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died under Nazi Occupation